The ATP has decided to shake things up a little bit this year. Instead of the normal 32-player draw or whatever each tournament features, the first few days of competition will now be dominated by a
round-robin format. Essentially, players are grouped and play the other players in their group and the winners advance out to the elimination phase, which usually begins as the QF. This means that you can still lose in your round-robin group but win the tournament. Some players like it, some don't. The only time I have used round-robins is at small local tournaments when there aren't enough players to fill out a full draw sheet. I think it's kind of stupid that the ATP is doing that on tour though. It is how they run the Tennis Masters Cup, which makes sense, because if you have the 8 best players in the world, why not have them play more matches and beat on each other a little bit more for the benefit of the audience? It doesn't make much sense to do it at every tournament though, which is probably why the ATP is just trialing it at select tournaments this year.
Brad Gilbert doesn't like it, which is good enough for me to not like it. And I agree with him, on-court coaching would be much better. It is allowed at every other level of the game, why not at the top?
In other news, the
US Davis Cup team was announced, and it was no surprise. In fact it's barely news worthy. The line up will be Andy Roddick, James Blake, the Bryan brothers at dubs. They are playing the Czech Republic on indoor clay Feb. 9-11. It will be interesting for sure...I hope they don't lose. Aside from Thomas Berdych there is no one that should pose a threat to the US players, but because it's
Davis Cup, and because we suck on clay, anything could happen.
The ATP has decided to shake things up a little bit this year. Instead of the normal 32-player draw or whatever each tournament features, the first few days of competition will now be dominated by a round-robin format. Essentially, players are grouped and play the other players in their group and the winners advance out to the elimination phase, which usually begins as the QF. This means that you can still lose in your round-robin group but win the tournament. Some players like it, some don't. The only time I have used round-robins is at small local tournaments when there aren't enough players to fill out a full draw sheet. I think it's kind of stupid that the ATP is doing that on tour though. It is how they run the Tennis Masters Cup, which makes sense, because if you have the 8 best players in the world, why not have them play more matches and beat on each other a little bit more for the benefit of the audience? It doesn't make much sense to do it at every tournament though, which is probably why the ATP is just trialing it at select tournaments this year. Brad Gilbert doesn't like it, which is good enough for me to not like it. And I agree with him, on-court coaching would be much better. It is allowed at every other level of the game, why not at the top?
In other news, the US Davis Cup team was announced, and it was no surprise. In fact it's barely news worthy. The line up will be Andy Roddick, James Blake, the Bryan brothers at dubs. They are playing the Czech Republic on indoor clay Feb. 9-11. It will be interesting for sure...I hope they don't lose. Aside from Thomas Berdych there is no one that should pose a threat to the US players, but because it's Davis Cup, and because we suck on clay, anything could happen.
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